Process and apparatus for humidifiers



April 12, 1932. s. D. HARRIS PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR HUMIDIFIERS Original Filed Jan. 15, 1926 avwantoz Gordon D. Harris @MQQMMMM i? Patented Apr. 12, 1932 UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE GORDON D. HARRIS, OF STAMFORD, CONNECTICUT, ASSIGNOR TO THE INDUSTRIAL DRYER CORPORATION, A CORPORATION OF CONNECTICUT PROCESS AND APPARATUS FOR HUMIDIFIERS Application filed January 15, 1926, Serial No. 81,606. Renewed November 6, 1929.

This invention relates to means and a method for humidifying materials.

There are many instances in the industrial arts in which the conditioning of materials by humidification is necessary or desirable. An example of this is in the art of shoe making in which the leather can be worked to the best advantage only when the stock is suitably moistened or tempered. Various methods of moistening or humidifying leather for this purpose have been heretofore employed but all such prior methods have been open to the objection that they have been incapable of producing a uniform distribution of moisture in the leather with the result that the tempering action has not been satisfactorily accomplished.

A general object of the present invention 1S to provide means and a method for humidifying materials which will be free from the objections referred to and which will effectively and uniformly moisten the stock.

The invention includes the provision of means and a method for charging a stream of air with moisture and causing the moisture-laden stream of air to engage the material to be treated.

Another feature of the invention resides in the provision of means for heating the air stream to a degree such that the added heat units will be interchanged for units of moisture, the temperature of the air when charged with moisture being lowered to normal by the interchange.

Another feature of the invention resides in the provision of a chamber in which the material to be treated is placed and in utilizing a blower for circulating a volume of air over and over again through a heating zone, a moisture charging zone, and through the chamber back to the heating zone.

Still another feature of the invention resides in the use of wick members arranged to dip into a renewable supply of water and presenting wet surfaces for engagement by the warmed stream of air which is caused to circulate among the wick members on its way to the humidifying chamber.

In the drawings, in which a preferred form of the invention has been selected for illustration,

Figure 1 is a view in vertical longitudinal section of a humidifying device embodying the invention,

Figure 2 is a horizontal section taken on the line 22 of Figure 1.

Figure 3 is a transverse vertical section taken on the line 3-3 of Figure 1.

Figure 4 is a sectional view on an enlarged scale showing an air moistening element forming part of the invention.

Referring to the drawings for a more detailed description of the invention, at 10 is shown a humidifying receptacle in which a compartment 11 is provided to receive the material which is to be treated. The compartment 11 is spaced apart from the end walls of the structure so that spaces 12 and 13 are provided between the end walls 14 and 15 of the compartment 11 and the end walls 16 and 17 of the humidifying structure. In like manner the floor or bottom wall 18 of the compartment 11 is raised above the floor or bottom wall 19 of the main structure to provide a space 20. The spaces 12, 13 and 20 which are thus formed serve as passageways through which a humidifying stream of air is circulated as will be hereinafter described. In order to charge the circulating stream of air with the necessary content of moisture, shallow pans or receptacles 21 are fitted into the space 20 beneath the floor wall 18 of the container 11. These pans are maintained in a substantially filled condition in operation by means of a supply pipe 22, a discharge outlet being provided at 23 at the other end of the structure.

In order to effectively charge an air stream passing through the space 20 with moisture supplied by the water in the pans 21, a series oftransversely extending bars 24 is provided, the bars being supported at their ends in the side walls of the structure 10. The bars form supports for a series of moisture distributing members 25 consisting of lamp wicking or other suitable porous material which, when suspended from the bars 24 and extending into the water in the pans 21 will, through capillary action, provide a constant and uniformly moistened surface for engagement by the air stream passing through the space 20 in which the moisture distributing members 25 are mounted.

In order to create and maintain a stream of air in circulation through the space 20 whereby the air stream is charged with moisture and through the chamber 11 in which the material to be treated or tempered is suspended, a fan or blower device 26 is mounted in an opening 27 provided for the purpose in one end of the compartment 11. The fan 26 is mounted on a shaft 28 which passes through the end wall 17 of the structure and is provided with a driving pulley 29 over which a belt 30 leading from a suitable source of power is passed. The opposite end wall 14 of the compartment 11 is provided with a series of openings 31 through which the air passes out of the compartment 11 into the passage or space 12 to thereby complete the circuit or cycle.

In order to insure the effective charging of the air stream with the maximum moisture content, means are provided for heating the air stream immediately prior to its passage into the moisture charging space 20. This means consists in the present case of hot water coils 32 although any other suitable heating means may be provided.

In the tempering or moistening of many materials such as leather it is not sought to utilize relatively high temperatures in the moistening process. In order to provide for this the heating coils 32 are regulated to impart only such a number of heat units to the air stream as will be exchanged for moisture evaporated from the members 25 in passing through the space 20. With this arrangement the temperature of the air as it emerges at 33 from the passage 20 again drops to the normal degree which prevails within the chamber 11 and in the passageway 12 just prior to its engagement with the heating coils 32. In other words, an air stream of relatively low temperature, for example 75 F., charged to a maximum or hundred per cent. degree of humidity may be readily obtained for securing the most satisfactory tempering for such materials as leather preliminary to the workllllg up of the leather into shoes or other arti- 0 es.

It will be obvious that when a higher degree of temperature is desired, together with a maximum or a lesser degree of humidity,

the desired effects may be obtained by variations in the temperature supplied to the air by the heating coils 32. It will be seen that both the temperature and the degree of humidity can be controlled through the heating coil. This control or regulation may be in turn efiected either manually or automatically as by use of a thermostat or equivalent device.

In operation, water is supplied to the pans 21 in proportion to the evaporation which takes place through the moisture distributing members 25, it being apparent that the water which is thus evaporated is deposited on the material suspended or otherwise mounted in the chamber 11.

\Vhile the supply of water in the pans 21 is thus renewed either continually or from time to time, the supply of air remains unchanged and the same volume of air is used over and over again as it circulates from the air conditioning space 12 through the water charging space 20 and into the chamber 11 before it returns to the air conditioning or heating space 12.

It will be seen that the air stream is thus used merely as a vehicle or conveyor to receive moisture from the distributing members 25 and deposit it on the material in the chamber 11.

The method of humidification thus described brings about a uniform degree of moistening of all the parts of the material contained in the chamber 11 by reason of the fact that bodies of difierent moisture content when at the same temperature tend to become equally moist with the result that the moisture-laden air passing through the chamber 11 gives up a greater proportion of its moisture to the least moist or drier objects so that as the humidification proceeds the vari ous articles in the chamber 11 become uniformly moist.

A resulting product is accordingly uniformly moistened or tempered so that the density of the various objects-is the same. This is particularly useful in working with leather stock since the leather thus treated is worked more advantageously, thereby making a better finished product, and also results in a saving in leather since the leather and the lining stock can be cut closer to the pattern sizes.

What I claim is 1. A humidifying apparatus having in combination a flow channel, a treating chamher, a water tank beneath saidchamber and within the flow channel, means for circulating air through said chamber and said channel and over the water in said tank, a heater for radiating heat into the circulating air, and a series of moisture-diffusing devices saturable by water from said tank, said moistum-diffusing devices being exposed within the flow channel to the access ofthe heated air acting by contact with said saturated devices for generating water vapor whichis diffused into the circulating air.

2. A method of producing moisture saturated gas for humidifving purposes comprising bringing gas and liquid into contact, supplying heat from a heating element to effect humidification of thegas. and controlling the temperature, the rate of flow of a heating medium through said element, and so positioning the point of application of heat, to obtain substantially complete saturation of the gas with moisture.

3. A method of conditioning material to assimilate moisture therein comprising circulating a conditioning gas through a zone containing the material, bringing the gas into contact with a liquid beneath said zone, supplying heat to assist in humidifying the gas and controlling the heat, its point of application in the cycle and so proportioning the contact area between the gas and liquid to obtain substantially complete saturation of the gas with moisture, and passing the gas while substantially completely saturated into the zone containing the material to be treated.

4. A method of conditioning material to assimilate moisture therein comprising bringing a gas and liquid into contact, supplying heat to the gas, controlling the heat and so positioning its point of application in the cycle to obtain substantially complete saturation of the gas with moisture, and positively forcing the moisture saturated gas through a chamber containing material to be treated.

5. A method of conditioning material to assimilate moisture therein, comprising circulating a conditioning gas through a chamber containing the material, bringing the gas into contact with a liquid, supplying heat to humidity the gas, and controlling the heat and its point of application in the cycle to obtain substantially complete saturation of the gas with moisture and to insure that substantially all the heat units are employed in saturating the gas without substantially raising its temperature at the point in the gycle where it enters the conditioning cham- 6. A method ofhumidifying material comprising circulating a gas cyclically in a closed circuit including a zone containing the material and a humidifying zone, applying heat to the gas at a determined point in its path of travel through the humidifying zone, and then passing the heated gas in contact with water, controlling thelieating of the gas and so positioning the point of application of the heat in the path of flow of the gas as to substantially completely saturate the gas with moisture, and immediately passing the gas while substantially completely saturated with moisture into the zone containing the material to be treated.

7. A method of conditioning material comprising cyclically circulating a gas in contact with the material to be treated and through a humidifying zone, heating the gas in the humidifying zone and then passing it in contact with moisture diffusing surfaces, controlling the heating of the gas and supplying the heat to the gas at such a point in the cycle as to substantially completely saturate the gas with moisture, and passing the sub- 

